


Where the Penny Drops

by stardropdream



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Infinity, there are too many questions Fay never wants to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Penny Drops

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ June 3, 2009.

Infinity was always cold. 

It was nighttime and Fay stayed by Sakura’s side until she fell asleep. He watched her for a long moment, his expression gentle. He reached out his hand and brushed away some of her fringe before snapping his hand back and standing abruptly. He stared down at the slumbering girl and his expression tightened. She’d been as quiet as always, but he hadn’t pressed it. He left, shutting the door quietly behind him. He leaned against the wood for a long moment, staring straight ahead. The house they stayed in was painfully silent. 

He walked. Kurogane was in his room, but the door was slightly ajar. He almost passed by, just like he had so many times before. The ninja’s back was to him and Fay felt himself freeze, despite himself. 

Even from the distance, Fay could see the painful edges of skin, reddened and jagged. They screamed at him, a constant reminder of the world they’d left behind so long ago, and yet still clung to them desperately. They lurched across his skin, the screaming red of unhealed skin painfully seared into his back. As he moved, throwing his shirt aside and grabbing a new one, the muscles rippled beneath the skin, and the marred scars danced feverishly, devilishly as if possessed. 

He bit his lip, trying to banish the painful images. All things considered, he was sure the ninja had been through much worse. They’d all been through much worse. Scars for Kurogane were nothing. He was a ninja, his entire body was probably covered in scars. But they looked painful, manifestations of broken boundaries and distance. They laughed at him, wickedly tearing at Kurogane’s flesh as if singing _“This is all your fault. This is all your fault.”_

Kurogane must have felt his gaze because he turned and their eyes locked for a second. Just long enough for those red eyes—the color of his unhealed skin—to ask him a question. Fay looked away, lurching his body forward so he could lean against the doorframe. Feigning nonchalance, feigning indifference. He looked away before he could answer those eyes. 

The other man grunted, looking annoyed—not that Fay could blame him—before tugging his shirt on over his head, hiding the scars. When his head emerged from the top of the shirt again, his eyes were narrowed and his lips were drawn out into a taut line. 

“What?” Kurogane asked, and he sounded almost resigned. His face was angry, his stance was defensive, but the rest of him was painfully resigned. 

Fay hesitated. He shifted so he was standing up straight again and despite himself his blue eye found Kurogane’s red eyes. And they were glaring at him, but not out of anger. They asked for something else, and it was something that Fay couldn’t give. 

He smiled. The ghostly, bitter smile blossomed over his lips, stretching his tired face. He shrugged his shoulders, looking painfully cheerful, and said, “Nothing, Kurogane.”

“Hn.” 

Kurogane paused, as if he wanted to say something, anything. His red eyes said something that Fay didn’t want to listen to. Disconnected. Fay smiled, hollow. Those red eyes sparked into a language he understood and greeted—frustration. He could handle an angry Kurogane. This other Kurogane was one that Fay couldn’t deal with. He couldn’t afford to be close to him again. And those scars hidden beneath the fabric of his shirt mocked him, taunted him with _“It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.”_

The second time he saw the scars, it was after they’d stripped off his clothes and bandaged his shoulder, where his arm had been severed away. They slipped him into a kimono and laid him on the futon. He watched them go. Tomoyo stood beside him and smiled serenely and yet her eyes looked far too old to belong to a girl so young. And it felt like he was suffocating, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from the sleeping ninja. Tomoyo had promised he’d live. 

He watched the ninja breathe and he sighed, pressing his face into his hand, his remaining eye clenching shut. 

“Stupid,” he decided and didn’t know if he was talking about himself or the sleeping man beside him. “So stupid.”


End file.
